Challenger Tour Round-Up: Men’s Top Seeds Through in India, QSF 6 Final Set in Qatar

JSW 9th Sunil Verma Memorial Open 

The top three seeds all made it through to the quarter-finals of the men’s competition at the JSW 9th Sunil Verma Memorial Open, but there were plenty of upsets elsewhere on day two. 

Sri Lanka’s Ravindu Laksiri, the men’s No.1 seed, won his round-two encounter with Vedant Patel 3-0 in the final match of the day on court two, several hours after No.2 seed Suraj Chand had seen off Adarsh Banodha in an all-Indian clash to open proceedings on court one. 

Sandwiched in between those matchups, though, were a host of upsets, as the No.4, 5, 6 & 7 seeds all went out. 

Vaibhav Chauhan was one of the beneficiaries of those results, staging an impressive comeback to beat Om Semwal 3-2, fighting back from two games down to win in just over an hour. 

In the women’s draw, which is one day ahead of the men’s as a 16-player field, the semi-finals were set, with at least one unseeded player guaranteed in the final. 

Pooja Arthi and Unnati Tripathi both won their quarter-final matches and will now go head-to-head for a place in the final, where the winner of the first semi-final will await. 

That matchup will be contested between fifth seed Nirupama Dubey and No.4 seed Sunita Patel, who were the highest-ranked players in round two after the top three seeds had all crashed out in round one. 

QSF 6 

No.2 seed Ammar Altamimi will take on fifth seed and home hopeful Waleed Zaman for the QSF 6 title, after both players came through their respective semi-finals. 

The experienced Altamimi, who made his tour debut back in 2011, beat Sepehr Etemadpoor 3-0 in the first semi-final, recording his third straight-games win in a row. 

The Kuwaiti is now one win away from securing his second PSA Tour crown, but standing in his way is a man who has already knocked out the No.1 seed. 

Zaman is currently ranked at No.305 in the world, but beat top seed and World No.165 Salem Al Malki in an all-Qatari quarter-final and followed that up with a semi-final victory over Kuwait’s Mohammad Almasoud to reach his first ever PSA Tour final.

You can stay up to date with all the results on the PSA Tour here.